NOTe: All of Scissor Shock's music is available for free at http://www.last.fm/music/Scissor+Shock while Adam's films are available for free download right here on archive.org (if you have trouble finding them initially, go to http://directoradmcooley.angelfire.com). All Adam asks is for a small donation of any type (paypal to mradamcooley [at] hotmail ...), or for YOU to share with your friends/family/enemies. Please burn for yourself, burn for them, share on soulseek (http://www.slsknet.org), whatever floats your turd boat.

.......

[ [ [ P S Y C H I C E X I S T E N T I A L I S M ] ] ]
Voted # 1 album of the year by four different zines/message boards. Currently has 25 ratings on rateyourmusic, 17 of which are 5-star out of 5-star. Finding an actual copy of this is dang near impossible.

This album took nearly 2 years to write (and about 2 weeks to record). Scissor Shock is an indescribable band who changes their sound -- and lineup -- consistently. For example, at one point, the band pretty much only existed as a live entity, and had 17 regular members but they would pluck members out of the audience, or meet people right before the show and hand them an instrument with specific instructions. One show boasted 31 members (including 4 drummers, 7 keyboard players, 3 bassists, 10 vocalists, and everyone else played guitar, drum machine, broken acoustic, kazoo, xylophone, marimba, trumpet, and who knows what else) -- this was the show that blew up a PA, and a guy farted into a mic which pissed off the club owner. At another show, there was only 6 members -- and in the middle of the show, leader Adam Cooley got into a wresling match with a guy dressed as Satan while still continuing to do vocals for the songs in all the proper places!

So, after 10 years, and probably 17 releases or so, Adam decided to make his most musical offering yet. He is the only member of the band, and he plays organ, acoustic, electric, bass, cello, piano, synth, junk percussion, drums, drum machine, trumpet, trombone, sax, toy instruments, homemade instruments, and just about every other instrument ever. Most of the vocals were done through a telephone (during track 12, someone called and asked for "JB"; this was left in).

This is basically a bedroom-recorded avant-progressive/rock in opposition neo-no wave album. There's really no one else out there doing what Scissor Shock is doing, or has done. While parts of the album are definitely "musical", just as many parts of the album sounds like music destroying itself.

As of this writing; Adam Cooley has appeared on over 150 albums, has made 8 films and animated serieses, has made hundreds of paintings, has programmed 1 video game, has written 2 novels, and has written hundreds of thousands of poems. Despite working in many different forms of entertainment, there is a surreal glue that holds together everything he does. Adam also believes that ALL art should be free. He works extremely hard, and -- because of how "challenging" his stuff consistently is -- has encountered lots of difficulties with getting his stuff read/played/seen/heard over the past 13 years (Adam released his first album when he turned 12). For the longest time, no label wanted to touch it, until he started getting notice from fearless labels, zines, and endorsements from popular musicians and actresses (including Bill Gates -- yes, THE Bill Gates). While he no longer has any problem getting his stuff out there, he still adheres to the philosophy that all art should be free, no matter how hard you work on it, though he also believes that if you love art, you should donate to the artists who have inspired you.

plus-circle Add Review

comment

Reviews